Bug 1666690 (CVE-2019-3815)

Summary:	CVE-2019-3815 systemd: memory leak in journald-server.c introduced by fix for CVE-2018-16864
Product:	[Other] Security Response	Reporter:	Riccardo Schirone <rschiron>
Component:	vulnerability	Assignee:	Red Hat Product Security <security-response-team>
Status:	CLOSED ERRATA	QA Contact:
Severity:	low	Docs Contact:
Priority:	low
Version:	unspecified	CC:	berend.de.schouwer, bugzilla.redhat.com, carnil, colin.bieri, joedward, klaas, lizenzen, lnykryn, msekleta, rik.theys, sbroz, security-response-team, sreber, s, systemd-maint-list, systemd-maint, zbyszek
Target Milestone:	---	Keywords:	Security
Target Release:	---
Hardware:	All
OS:	Linux
Whiteboard:
Fixed In Version:		Doc Type:	If docs needed, set a value
Doc Text:	A memory leak was discovered in the backport of fixes for CVE-2018-16864 in Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Function dispatch_message_real() in journald-server.c does not free the memory allocated by set_iovec_field_free() to store the `_CMDLINE=` entry. A local attacker may use this flaw to make systemd-journald crash.	Story Points:	---
Clone Of:		Environment:
Last Closed:	2019-06-10 10:45:43 UTC	Type:	---
Regression:	---	Mount Type:	---
Documentation:	---	CRM:
Verified Versions:		Category:	---
oVirt Team:	---	RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
Cloudforms Team:	---	Target Upstream Version:
Embargoed:
Bug Depends On:	1666646, 1666727
Bug Blocks:	1666709

Description Riccardo Schirone 2019-01-16 11:23:10 UTC

A memory leak was discovered in the backport of fixes for CVE-2018-16864 in Red Hat Enterprise Linux (since version v219-62.2) and CentOS. Function dispatch_message_real() in journald-server.c does not free the memory allocated by set_iovec_field_free() to store the `_CMDLINE=` entry. A local attacker may use this flaw to make systemd-journald crash.

However systemd-journald crash is automatically restarted by systemd by default.

Comment 3 Riccardo Schirone 2019-01-17 14:27:30 UTC

Statement:

This issue affects version 219-62 of systemd as shipped with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.

Comment 6 Rik Theys 2019-01-29 08:31:41 UTC

Hi,

Is there any timeline on when this issue will be fixed in RHEL 7.6? This bug is causing journald (and rsyslog) to eat lots of RAM, resulting in systems swapping where they used to run for months without memory issues.

Regards,

Rik

Comment 7 Riccardo Schirone 2019-01-29 08:57:19 UTC

Hi Rik,

Please open a case with Support for these kind of questions, they will be more than happy to help you.
Best regards,

Riccardo

Comment 8 errata-xmlrpc 2019-01-29 17:25:28 UTC

This issue has been addressed in the following products:

  Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7

Via RHSA-2019:0201 https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2019:0201